Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-12-10
THE CITY OF NANTES.
A PEOPLE WHOSE COSTUMES ARE
 OF ECCENTRIC DESCRIPTION.
A hefoSe from the Artificial Life st the French CaPital-A HOmeIike Meal at a hotei-PrincipaI Business street-A RoyHlist's Opinion of the City

Royslist's Opinion of the City
 | Nantes takes a certain character from
 tne Sea, from the fishermen and from all
 ene queer types of humanity who dwell
 aioilg the coast of this department and If
 Moroihan well on up toward Brest The
 costumes of these people are of the most
 eccentric description, SO much SO that it is
 si'd that nowhere else in France can there
 oe seen such variety. Some are strilx- ihgly picturesque. There is the peasant woman, for instance, whose business it is
 tO culuVnte early potatoes in the sand near NOirmoutier and bring them to mar
 keI She wears a skirt coming just below
 tue knees, a snlall cap, some sort of apron,
 checked CT otherwise, and has the
 loot, ankle and calf entirely exposed. or
 snoes or SahOts neatly polished and stock
 ings closely fitting and often of intricate pattern The shoes and hosiery arc their l special weakness, end it is not rnre to see
 among them a well made foot and ankle
 Ane entire costume is commonly in sober
 coiors and neatly kept. On the contrary, you soc little girls with long skirts com
 Ing 10 the soles of the shoe, who look as if
 they had just stepped from one of Van
 dykes pOFtruits.
 As Q specimen of the male costume of
 Morbihan, We have the low crowned.
 round topped hat of velvet, or of straw or felt bound with velvet, very jaunty, or,
 as the French would say, chic. The
 jacket is something like the yoluminous exterior garment of OUT ancestors of the Seventeenth century, but jacket all the same, and gay with rows of buttons so thickay set that they overlap one an- other The collar Of the shirt Is as broad as a ships mninssil It is open in front and rises stifhy up behind the head, serv- ing as a background to faee that Is the picture of innocence and as quaint as the costume itself
 1t ts pleasant relief to get away from the highly artificial life and the highly ar tinoial articles Of food and drnk at Paris even to Q stupid and not over cleanly place hke Nantes. The country offers its treas- ures more generously than tbe city. It is pleasaot Co know that the wines, if they are not Clos Vougeot Pomard. Chateau Lefits or Cheteau YQuen, are at least aIl they pretend to be; that you are near the place where people produce their own but ter and lny thstT own eggS; where they even put the butter on tho table and sell their milk at four cents q quart from the wagons fin the street and at the corner 1 Erocer1es It is really with a homelfke | feeling that you sit down to breakfast or | dinner fin a hotel in a town fn Anjou, or | iat the hotel at Nantes on which I be- | lstowed my humble patronage. The still | ness that pervndes the dining room Is sol- | hrnn. You hear two or three flies bu-zins | behind the hoe curtains that drnpe the | windows. You look up to the ceiIing not | painted by Michncl Angelo, but by some | unimmortalized local fresco painter. in | imitation of the sky. You don't roInem- Der ever to have seen exactly such shades | of blue in the Armament before But TO matter. The chandeliers arc attached to | the ceiling with blue ribbons painted fat | thereon, the ends drawn out sideways and | held !n the beaks of doves, the species and the school of ert being alike unfa- miliar.
 Into the room steal furtively from time to time representatives of tue Nantas Ourgeoiso-solid, solemn, funereal-vho tranqGil partcke of the several courses and thgn steal away as stesltkily as they sntored Perhaps there enters @ whole Breton fzutly - father, mother, sons, daughters and bonne-au of whom make the sign of the croSs before tatziag their places. Their dress is quiet and their manners nlnlost as reverential as If they
  the mature GnrcUns-One gray haired whom you seem faintly to recollect as having seen in the opera of ''The Kugae- nots." Their duty performed decorously and entirely in keeping with the sur roundings. There is none of beynriaCe SO often seen ct French tables. The | cuisine is rather remarkable for its pro fusion than its fine quality, thus reversing the parisian rule. some dishes are even left on the table where persons can help themselves. Nothing could be more un- PGrisisu. The batter Is of char acter to attract attention. There are perhals twenty persons Tt table ,com- parativeiy few persons come to Nantes) and there are four rolls of golden butter distributed along the table eGch weighing at least a pound, and, like everything else Offere'i you, 1t Is ''a discre- ton" Then you drink, if you are dis posed a whole bottle of white or red wine The hotel is, I believe, the best in Nantes, and your breakfast and dinner cost you to-ether only five Snncs a day, while q good room costs only three francs more.
 In coming from Cholet to Nantes made the acquaintance of young lawyer of Poitiers, royalist by birth and political preference and a most charming and in-
 
 me. Nantes IS q vile de luxe" As T have already remarked, this is not inti- mated to the stranger. There is nothing , In the houses or shops that would indicate t. Then as I met him in the evening be conducted me through what he said WIS he principal business street.-the only , business street in fnct-a thorouGhfare narrow and crooked like the rest, half a | , nile in length and having on either side shops, badly lighted and with poor displays of goods in the win lows. There were no carriages, but it vas filled with a crowd of promenaders purpOscly to and fro and look ng Hstlessly into the uninteTesting windows, as have seen them in l he smaller towns of Italy or else where in Europe. There was nowhere lse to go, theatres being closed and sum ner amusements conspicuous by their , bsence. The rich were at the watering ilaces; the poor were amusing themselves D low drinking houses, such as are seen , n the pictures of Temers and Steen, of ypes thnt are universal and have been for % years. There are, however, at Nantes things hat are solid, substantial and elegant in he way of art and architecture. The athedral and other churches are among he finest in FEance, and there are statues kings and other celebrities in them, or ere and there in avenues and streets bout the city. There is library of 1O0,- O volumes, and the museum of paint l. lgs and statuary, the finest in France utSide of Paris and Versailles It is well !. -orth visit. went to the castle, which not SO massive and interesting as that | fingers, and better preserved, and from be top of the dungeon tower the concierge 0inted out to me that great place of the lmous nOyadeS, one of the most infamous of tho Tevolution.-Abert ( utlde in San Francisco Chronicle.
 English worhinCwomen-
 A computation just made on good data hows that there arc in England now about ,OO0, 900 vorkingwomen, of whom one-haf re in domestic service. further that half the
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